Bishopsgate Cottage

Original titleBishopsgate Cottage, Sheckley
Year painted1822
Museum reference numberPR149
Address and postcodeThis building was probably on the Estate of Park Place in Bishopsgate which was owned by the Buckworth Shakerley family. Park Place, Englefield Green, Egham TW20 0XP
Listed building numbern/a
Construction date of building depicted and major alterationsProbably mid-eighteenth century.
History of ownership/residents and useBishopsgate Cottage was probably located on the estate of Park Place belonging to the Buckworth family. Records show Charles Buckworth (1739-1783), a lieutenant in the Royal British Fusiliers, married Elizabeth Shakerley in Egham in 1764. 

Elizabeth was the only daughter of Peter Shackerley of Somerford, Cheshire, and she and Charles had six children. Their eldest son, Charles Watkin John Buckworth (d.1834) was baptised in Egham in 1767. Charles Watkin assumed the name Shackerley to continue his mother’s family line through a private Act of Parliament of 1789, aged 22 and inherited the imposing Somerford Hall and estates in Cheshire.

In 1822, when Hassell painted Bishopsgate Cottage, he noted with the characteristic fluid spelling of the day that it belonged to ‘Sheckley’, so we can safely assume that the cottage belonged to the Buckworth-Shakerley family. 
Charles Watkin owned the estate until his death in 1834 when it passed to his son Charles Peter Shakerley (b.1792, created baronet 1838). It can be supposed that Charles Peter divided his time between London and Cheshire and the 1841 census shows that Charles Watkin’s brother Joseph Francis, a retired Army officer, his wife Dame Mary Payne Buckworth and the eldest Buckworth sister, Anna Maria, were living at Park Place. It is quite possible that Anna Maria might have lived in Bishopsgate Cottage as an older, unmarried woman of independent means, or it may have been rented out.
Location’s present statusUnknown
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